Wellington Quaker Childrens Meeting, September 2005
Theme: Listening in the Silence
Objective: To explore the meaning and purpose of the Silence in Quaker Meeting for Worship
Topic / Time / Content / Resources- Preparation
10.30 /
Doorkeepers let children into silent Meeting for Worship and run this for 5 or so minutes
Close Meeting
- Introduction to session:
- thank everyone for being part of our short Meeting for Worship
– Quakers worship in silence, and this is what we will be talking about today
– Questions: have you ever wondered what everyone is thinking about in Meeting?
- Round: introductions with “In Meeting today, I was thinking of…..”
- Notice for door
- Chairs in circle
- Table with flowers and books
- Doorkeepers at door
- Discussion and activities
Younger children: ideas
- Box of different things that make a noise. Children close eyes and have to guess what the sounds are.
- Story about quiet places
- Discussion: about quiet places, what they feel when they are there. Children draw their quiet places
- Discussion about Meeting for Worship being a quiet place for Quakers, where they seek together the peace and calm found in childrens quiet places
- Continue discussion about silence in Meeting for Worship
– What is the silence in M for W about?
– Why are we silent?
– What are we listening for?
Suggestion: inject some humour eg has everyone gone to sleep? - Quotes: discussion and mural/mindmap
- Continuum?
- Draw discussion to our own private quiet places and why we have them. Need some way to help everyone to find quiet place.
- Use this idea to discuss difference between individual meditation (say in a quiet place or in the quiet places of our mind) and worshipping together in Meeting
- Introduce idea of centering and ways we have to do that (mind map about ways we have of settling down and centering draw comparison with something secular??)
- Box with noise makers
- Story
- Materials for quiet place
- Mind maps prepared
- Centering
Envelopes
/ Envelopes prepared- Sharing with Meeting
Quiet place pictures
- Envelopes??
Letter to Jessica from John, July 2003
Dear Jessica,
I would like to tell you an idea which some British children use during silent worship. Sometimes in a Children’s Meeting someone will guide them through it stage by stage. Or the children just do it for themselves in the grown-up Meeting. Perhaps you know it already, but if you don’t, you might like to try it some time. It’s important not to rush through this but do it very slowly, one bit at a time.
First they listen for all the noises they can hear outside the place where the Meeting is happening – cars, birdsong, people shouting. They listen to all those for a few minutes, then they put the noises out of their minds. (It’s a bit like playing ‘pass the parcel’ where you throw one layer of paper away).
Then they listen for all the noises inside the room. Some people may be moving or there may be heating or water pipes making a noise. They listen to these sounds too for a few minutes; during this time they may think in a loving way about the people who are there with them including those who are making the noises! They put these noises away.
After a pause they listen inside their bodies. They listen to the funny noises you may hear when you swallow, or in your tummy. They listen to their heart beating. Then they put these noises away.
A little later they try to listen to their thoughts. Perhaps there are some exciting plans for later in the day, or tomorrow. Perhaps someone’s coming to lunch. There might also be worries to listen to, maybe about school or about their friends. Then (not in too much hurry) they try to put these thoughts out of their minds too. This is the hardest layer to throw away.
Lastly they try to do the deepest listening of all. They try to hear the silence which is very far down inside each of us. This silence is usually covered up by the noise of everything you are thinking, but it is there. It’s peaceful and comforting, and when you find it you won’t feel you need to do anything at all. You can just stay with it; and if you do have some worry, you may find that the silence gives you an answer to your worry. Or, when you come back to everyday life, you may find that a worry which did seem big now looks quite small after all.
If you don’t do this already, I hope you will try it some time.
Love from John.
1. Listen for all the noises you can hear
outside the Meeting House,
cars, birdsong, people shouting.
2. Listen for all the noises inside the Meeting House.
Some people may be moving, breathing
or there may be heating or water pipes making a noise.
3. Listen inside your body,
those funny noises you hear when you swallow,
or in your tummy, or your heart beating.
4. Listen to your thoughts.
Perhaps there are some exciting plans
for later in the day, or tomorrow.
Perhaps someone’s coming to lunch.
There might also be worries to listen to,
maybe about school or about their friends.
5. Now, try the deepest listening of all.
Try to hear the silence which is very far down inside each of us.
It’s peaceful and comforting, and when you find it
you won’t feel you need to do anything at all.
You can just stay with it.
1. Listen for all the noises you can hear
outside the Meeting House,
cars, birdsong, people shouting.
2. Listen for all the noises inside the Meeting House.
Some people may be moving, breathing
or there may be heating or water pipes making a noise.
3. Listen inside your body,
those funny noises you hear when you swallow,
or in your tummy, or your heart beating.
4. Listen to your thoughts.
Perhaps there are some exciting plans
for later in the day, or tomorrow.
Perhaps someone’s coming to lunch.
There might also be worries to listen to,
maybe about school or about their friends.
5. Now, try the deepest listening of all.
Try to hear the silence which is very far down inside each of us.
It’s peaceful and comforting, and when you find it
you won’t feel you need to do anything at all. You can just stay with it.
Listening in the silence
“… True silence is the rest of the mind; and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”
William Penn, 1699
Listening in the silence
"Be still and cool in your own mind and spirit from your own thoughts and you will then feel the divine source of life in you"
Advice from George Fox to the daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Translated into modern English
Listening in the silence
“… the condition of true silence; [is] not just of sitting still, not just of not speaking, but of a wide awake, fully aware non-thinking. It is in this condition, found and held for a brief instant only, that I have experienced the existence of something other than ‘myself’… It is in this condition that one understands the nature of the divine power, it’s essential identity with love...”
Geoffrey Hubbard, 1974
Quaker Faith and Practise, Britain
Listening in the silence
“I expect [from Meeting for Worship]… a stillness which becomes a togetherness, a stillness that may bring a strengthening of my best intentions, a stillness that is healing to my hurts, a stillness that helps me to lose my self-preoccupation, a stillness that helps me to identify with others.”
Alan Gilderdale 1972
Quaker Faith and Practice in Aotearoa NZ, pg 135
Listening in the silence
“In waiting together in silence and expectancy, in being ‘tendered’, as early Friends called it - made aware and open and tender-hearted to the needs of others - in sharing the divine communication, we are preserved from relying on the infallibility of our individual guidance. The group can be a strength and a check, and in the group Meeting for Worship we may know our individual experience extended and enriched. ‘It is not the scattered embers, but the piled up logs that send great leaping flames to heaven.”
Ruth Fawell 1965
Quaker Faith and Practice in Aotearoa NZ, pg 134